In Theaters

Beware of Mr. Baker, is a documentary about Ginger Baker, one of the world’s greatest drummers. It made me audibly express amazement twice, and only once because of his drumming. The film’s title is taken from a sign at the gate of Baker’s South African property–and talk about truth in advertising! B.O.M.B. begins, and ends, with Baker physically assaulting its director, who then laughs it off! Celebrity insulates, but some artists are so influential that it’s an honor to be in their orbit, even momentarily, regardless of the circumstances.

If you’re unfamiliar with the plot for the movie Carrie, it’s essentially all the ingredients for a school shooting, except Carrie has no access to guns. What she does have, though, is a particular set of skills. Powers if you will. As she deals with the adversity of being picked on in school, of having a terrible home life, she slowly develops these skills. And then one day, at the prom of all places, the emotions spill over, and her powers get out of hand.

So, as most Comedy Film Nerds fans know…I LOVE horror movies! I try to see almost every one that comes out (unless they have truly horrible word of mouth) and as we get closer to October, that need for cinematic scares grows even more urgent. So why have I been avoiding seeing the new James Wan frightfest Insidious: Chapter 2?

If you haven’t seen the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs don’t worry, the opening of this sequel gives a full run-down of it. Wow. How lazy can writers be? I’m surprised a voice-over didn’t start the segment with, “Previously on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs…”

The World’s End is a movie of several stories. Like the other two films Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have done, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the basic themes of friendship and the “world is full of mindless-automatons” are revisited. They do them well.

It was beginning to look like I’d never type these words, but Jennifer Aniston has finally been in an excellent movie! And not just an excellent movie–but a better movie than any other Friends alumni has made.

Planes is an abomination wrapped inside a bullshit party. That’sreally all I want to write about this endless crap festival of a filmbut since this is a review, I’m supposed to keep going. AND I SHALL.

Groundbreaking? Not exactly, but there’s a reason that certain stories are well-trodden: Because we want to see them again and again. Meatballs is one of my favorite movies. Vintage Bill Murray from 1979. The Way, Way Back is basically the same story: Awkward boy, who nobody appreciates, comes-of-age one summer when he meets the coolest guy in the world, who inexplicably sees something great in him, and brings it out.

Rock & roll movies are my focus, but I made an exception for The Conjuring because the only thing that rivaled rock & roll for my earliest affections was horror films. I was just as likely to be found reading Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine as Hit Parader. And I loved the rockers who recognized a market at that particular intersection–Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and later Alice Cooper and KISS. I was delighted to get a “two-for-one.”

This is what Comic-Con has begat. This scenario: Some producer with a three picture deal with some studio rushes down to San Diego one summer in a panic, trolling the booths, looking for a “hot property” to license to get all these dressed up nerds into a movie theatre. Over there, in the Dark Horse booth, is one that is about a police department made up of dead cops who have to come back to earth to capture escaped dead people, or dead-o’s as they are called. “Awesome, I’ll take it!” says the producer. Armed with a stack of these newly found comic books, he slams them down on the desk Monday morning in the L.A. production office. “This is the movie we’re making, and the good news is, it’s already storyboarded!!”